We took a bus a little further south Sunday morning to a tiny town called Raglan and stayed in a place called Karioi Lodge in Whale Bbay (about 20 minute drive out of Raglan itself). This was completely in the sticks and was set in what resembled a jungle, each of the set of rooms a little higher up into the wilderness. It really reminded us of the setting from 'The Beach', one of the reasons was due to how it looked and the other because of the community it seemed to have. We thought that people probably stop off here for a while to either surf, as it's one of the best places in NZ or lots of them get jobs in Raglan (not that there can be many?). Everyone seemed to know each other and they were a little less forthcoming when it came to talking to us than we'd experienced in the last two hostels.

The reason we stayed here was because it was beside where our friend Heike was staying in an apartment and were catchiong up with her before she goes back to Germany. She came and met us after her morning surf lesson and then we walked to hers for lots of fresh coffee - her apartment was amazing!! It beat our hostel room by a mile, although we're not really proper backpackers as we booked a whole dorm room as there were no doubles (we've decided to avoid sharing dorm rooms at all costs!! ;-)) Heike is a lovely girl - she's 39, but looks about 29, if not younger! She's a Graphic designer and has so many great stories to tell. We feel really lucky to have met someone so cool so early on. It's just a shame that she was only here for three weeks and she goes in a few days! However, we'll probably go and see her and meet her boyfriend in Germany after our trip.

That evening the three of us got a lift into Raglan and treated ourselves to a really good meal at a hotel there - I had the most amazing New Zealand Green Lipped Mussels and they were so huge. In fact they were that big that a couple of them even had tiny baby crabs inside! I didn't eat those though, as didn't fancy the crunchy shells! (Bryan and Yaz, you would have loved them!! - The mussels not the crabs!). We had a few drinks after the meal and then as suggested by the hostel asked the hotel if they could give us a ride home. They couldn't as it was after 9pm and the only taxi driver in Raglan finishes at 5pm!! It looked like we were going to have to take a pretty hairy 2 hour walk back to where we were staying, but not only was it pitch black it was also raining and the walk was partly along the cliffs, as far as we could remember . . . . well anyway it turns out that in NZ everyone hitch hikes and they assured us in the hotel it would be fine, so we took our chances as there were three of us and started to walk. However, this was 10.30 on a Sunday evening and there weren't any cars around! After about 10 minutes a pick up truck came past so we stuck out our thumbs and surely enough he pulled over and drove us back. He was a chippy called Mike and lived locally, as most of them do. It was daunting for us as we'd never do this at home, but everyone does it here and the Kwis are so friendly they just want to help you and give you ideas of where to go!

We said our goodbyes to Heike and went to bed ready for an early start the next morning. It wasn't easy to get to sleep though, as the community at the backpackers had really woken up and were partying in the darkness of the hills, plus there were a couple making out on the hammock outside our room . . . . ;-)